Mets Notes: Mejia, Bullpen, Edgin, De Aza

Jenrry Mejia’s stunning lifetime suspension for failing a third PED test is still fresh on the minds of most Mets fans, and Ken Davidoff of the New York Post runs down some of the intricacies of the Joint Drug Agreement’s ban. As Davidoff notes, Mejia remains property of the Mets and will gain Major League service time even though he is suspended. As such, the Mets will have to officially non-tender Mejia next offseason. Mejia is banned for at least two years, but he can apply for reinstatement after one year. Reinstatement seems unlikely, and as Davidoff notes, both the Korea Baseball Organization and Nippon Professional Baseball honor MLB disciplinary measures, so Mejia isn’t likely to latch on overseas, either. He could play independent ball if the Mets grant him permission, and as Davidoff notes, the Mets may feel no reason to prevent him from doing so.

Lefty Josh Edgin, who is recovering from Tommy John surgery, is aiming for a May 1 return, tweets MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo. While that return will, of course, be largely dependent on how his rehab progresses this spring and throughout the month of April, Edgin would give the Mets a quality fourth option as a left-hander. Edgin logged a 1.32 ERA in 27 1/3 innings for the Mets in 2014 and looked poised to be a key ’pen member going forward prior to his injury.

The re-signing of Yoenis Cespedes essentially made Alejandro De Aza a superfluous fifth outfielder for the Mets, but the team has no plans to attempt to trade him right now, Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports reports. Clearly, a trade of De Aza would represent a rare occurrence, as a player that signs as a free agent must give his consent to being traded before June 15. However, De Aza would “almost certainly” consent to a deal now that he’s in line for a dramatically diminished role to the one he thought he was signing up for when he took the Mets’ one-year, $5.75MM offer earlier this winter. The Mets want to make sure that each of Michael Conforto, Curtis Granderson and Cespedes make it through Spring Training without injury before dealing De Aza, though, Rosenthal notes. Additionally, he points out that the presence of David Murphy, Will Venable and Matt Joyce on the free-agent market also makes a trade unlikely, as teams have similar alternatives on the open market. I’d further add that injuries are likely to pop up around the rest of the league and could leave a team that doesn’t stand out as a current fit as a suitor down the line.

Comments

I really don’t understand how everyone thinks Conforto is a superstar now and not a small sample/rookie luck case study? It’s so early and the Mets were smart to invest in a backup plan for him in De Aza. Conforto could very easily slump heavily and be sent back to the minors for more seasoning.

Deaza was signed to split time with lagares in center field.
Not take conforto’s job in left field. Conforto is playing every day as was granderson. When cespedes signed it moved lagares and de aza into fourth and fifth outfielders.

Schwarber is a slugger with 40 homer pop and an elite walk rate both of which are strong indicators of future performance, conforto is more 20 homer pop and doubles with more contact. Also dont buy in to conforto being a good defender, he is average but the bat is definitely real.

But will his godawful defense allow more than 40 runs on errors? That was the pace he was on during the NLCS. Ah, being a Met fan at Wrigley and cheering every time the ball went his way. Schwarber needs to find his way to an AL team, fast.

What I don’t understand is why everyone is only skeptical about Conforto’s future as a big leaguer, yet guys like Schwarber, Bryant, Sano, Grichuk, Lindor and Russell are getting lauded as future superstars when some of their numbers seem unrepeatable or are a tell for future struggles.

For starters, all of those players, minus Lindor, struck out at least 28% of the time, whereas Conforto struck out barely 20%. Some of those players had extremely high BABIPs (at least relative to their averages): .396 for Sano, .378 for Bryant, .365 for Grichuk, .348 for Lindor, .324 for Russell (who hit .242) and .293 for Schwarber, which could stand to improve. Conforto’s was .296, which could also stand to improve and if it doesn’t, he was a .270 hitter anyway; it isn’t like he got batted ball luck.

Defensively, Sano and Schwarber looked awful and you have to wonder how they’ll translate to a full season – maybe they’ll handle it but if last year was any indication, their defense will drive their contributions wayyyy down. Bryant and Grichuk were good defensively, while Lindor and Russell play phenomenal defense, but Conforto did too. In fact, extrapolated over a full season, Conforto would’ve had arguably the best defensive numbers of any LF in baseball; it wasn’t like he was just solid there, he was elite defensively. I don’t expect that to stay the same, but he showed enough to me that he’s going to be at least an above average fielder.

Even if you just go by fWAR, it’s conveys a telling story: Bryant (6.5 in 650 PA), Lindor (4.6 in 438), Grichuk (3.1 in 350), Russell (2.9 in 523), Schwarber (1.9 in 273), Sano (2.0 in 335)… and Conforto (a whopping 2.1 WAR in less than 200 PAs – 194 specifically).

He’s a Met and put up that insane production in a two month span (while also sitting vs lefties for most of the time) so I can understand the skepticism, but it isn’t as if what he did was fueled by unsustainable rates and luck. He played GG defense, had a 134 wRC+ and hit three rockets in the postseason, despite underwhelming overall numbers. There’s no reason to believe he won’t keep up his production.

Ortiz could have failed because of a supplement that can be bought legally at GNC. No one knows if he took an illegal steroid or a supplement except for Ortiz himself. Personally, I don’t care who was juicing and who wasn’t back then. Its safe to say a good amount of the superstars were. If the pitcher is juicing and the hitter is as well, doesn’t it pretty much cancel each other out? It does bother me when players from today get caught though. It is clearly frowned upon and even though still in use today it is not nearly as wide spread.